An aircraft door assembly of an aircraft, such as the assembly depicted in a schematic longitudinal section in FIG. 6, is known. This previously known aircraft door assembly possesses a fuselage 200 having a door opening that is surrounded by a door frame 202, and an aircraft door 204, in particular a passenger door, fittable in the door frame 202. Aircraft door 204 possesses a door structure having an outer skin 206. Aircraft door 204 is liftable from a locked closed position into an unlocked closed position, and from there is pivotable into an open position located outside door frame 202 and outside fuselage 200. The lifting direction is identified in FIG. 6 by an arrow 205. Aircraft door 204 is also pivotable from the open position back into the unlocked closed position, and from there is lowerable back into the locked closed position. In the locked closed position, a door gap 208 (shown with cross-hatching in FIG. 6) is present between door frame 202 and an upper door edge 210. This door edge 208 defines a space for lifting and lowering aircraft door 204. Aircraft door 204 possesses, on its outer side and on a door edge region associated with door frame 202, a door gap covering element 212 that is placed onto outer skin 206 and fixedly joined thereto. With aircraft door 204 in the locked closed position, door gap covering element 212 extends over door gap 208 onto the outer side of fuselage 200, and covers door gap 208.
The upper and the lower edge of door gap covering element 212 rest on the outer side of fuselage 200, thus resulting respectively in an aerodynamically unfavorable sharp edge 214 that also leads to undesirable noise generation in flight.
Door gap covering element 212 is moreover configured in flexurally elastic fashion, so that in the locked closed position it rests tightly and fixedly against the outer skin of fuselage 200. Damage to the surface protection of the outer side of the fuselage thus often occurs upon lifting and lowering of aircraft door 204, since upper edge 206 of door gap covering element 212 rubs in this context against the outer side of fuselage 200.
Also known are aircraft door assemblies that do not comprise a door gap covering element, but in which the door gap is simply filled with a flexible-rubber filler material. This filler material is compressed upon lifting of the door into the unlocked closed position. When the door is lowered back into the locked closed position, the filler material expands again and closes off the door gap. With this approach, however, the transition regions from the filler material to the door frame or door structure exhibit large discontinuities, so that these aircraft door assemblies have less-favorable aerodynamic properties. The filler material is moreover highly stressed during opening and closing of the door, and therefore wears very quickly and must therefore be more frequently replaced.